Casket
by Coffee and Cyanide
Summary: Sometimes sleepless dreams drive one insane. Sometimes memories do the same thing. [.yaoi.] [.Yami no Bakura x Seto Kaiba.]
1. Prologue: This Empire

Casket

**Prologue:  
**_I will carry this empire/With these hands._

A baby would fit inside the computer monitor.

He must be tired, to be thinking about stuffing babies' inanimate bodies into his computer. Seto Kaiba eyed the monitor with a critical eye. A newborn to maybe a twelve month old, he was guessing, but wasn't a specialist in natal care. Of course, that might also be speaking to him that it was time to upgrade his home computer. For a moment he had the vague delusion that if he put his hand over the pie charts on the screen he might fall through.

_Like Alice and the Looking Glass._

He thought with somewhat bitter amusement. He'd already fallen through, it seemed, being surrounded by oddities only an author on herione could conjure up. For one there was a Pharaoh in residence of a midget's body, not to mention several people had suddenly aquired a taste for gaudy jewelry.

Seto was far more bitter and sarcastic at the world at three in the morning. This fact became apparent to him only after he had finished his mental ramblings and reached for the umpteenth cup of coffee. Some people called him a workaholic, others, a 'control freak', as true as either of them were he was just 'really fuckin' tired' at the moment. He would have gone to bed, the plush pillow called out to him from the bedroom just four doors down. If he wanted to Seto could imagine the haze of sleep just off in his peripheral. Except that when he slept, he dreamed. He had never been fond of dreaming, maybe that was the control freak part of him talking, since he had never learned to lucid dream. Or maybe its what he saw when he dreamed.

_...I hope you never wake up._

And then he'd just remember that the past was unpleasent enough to forget.

* * *

_There it is. My 'triumphant' return to the YGO fandom. I've been out of it for a while. I used to be 'Unintentional Nightmare'. But this is, hopefully, my more mature and better version of myself._

_This fic will be BakuraxSeto, so if you don't like, I'm not all that terribly sorry. A bit of AU elements as well, I think.  
_

_I hope you enjoy.  
CC_


	2. Chapter One: This East

Casket

**Chapter One:**  
_I look to the East to see the sun./But all I see is my shadow._

She irritated him to no end. He watched her from across the neatly organized mahogany desk and realized her hands were folded in her lap. His blue eyes traced the line of her slightly bent elbow beneath her shirt to where they vanished under the wooden edge of the desk. Isis was smiling, serenely, as if she knew something he didn't. And she did, which was the infuriating part. The torque around her neck taunted him with the scratched soft gold surface, the eye staring at him. He thought, idly for a moment, that she should have been given the Scales, since her gaze judged so harshly.

"Yuugi tells me you see the future," He let his voice fall flat, watching her ears capture the sound and search for the deeper meaning to his words. She smiled when she found it.

"...this _shows _me the future, Kaiba, I do not _see _it." As if the torque had a mind of its own. Which wasn't stretching it, since both the Ring and Puzzle seemed intent on posessing their bearers so fiercely. Seto frowned to himself. Since when had he believed in that?

"Well then," He leaned forward, elbows resting on the quarterly report, typed in 11 point font, single spaced, as he remembered, "Does it _show_ you the past?" The sneer crept into his voice at its own will, but he let it. Isis tilted her head to the side in response, the cool smile never breaking.

"Perhaps, is there something you seek?" When her question came to an end her hands revealed themselves, resting on the edge of the desk. She was wearing four rings, one with a square cut stone, he noticed. Square cut, diamond, perhaps? Seto brought his attention back to her eyes, where his gaze inevitably wandered, to her nose, between her eyes, her stubborn chin, earrings... one would never notice the slight unfocusing of his eyes, but Seto never looked people directly in the eyes.

"Why do you ask that"

"Perhaps I've seen it?" She was laughing at him. His fingers curled, dragging the report into a furrowed, wrinkled piece of paper. Seto made a mental note to make another copy.

"Don't play games with me," "What you seek won't be found in the future." She sobered rather quickly, gaze turning down to the wood, and when she lifted her face she was teasing him again,

"...try asking a historian." Seto knew what she was insinuating. He didn't like it.

"...We're done for the day," He stood up, "It was nice speaking with you, Ms. Ishtal," His long legs took him to the door faster than her smaller steps. Seven strides, he knew exactly, and he'd always end up on the blue diamond on the floor. Not a perfect square, this diamond wasn't, but more like a kite shape.

"It was nice speaking to you as well, Mr. Kaiba," As she exited his office, Isis turned in the doorway, "Funny, how the past has a way of invading the future." He scowled at her retreating back, slamming the door shut.

He cancelled the rest of his meetings for the day.

Attack. Defend. Trap. The neat stacks of decks on the table made him feel powerful. He could name every card, its effects, the best strategy to use when playing it. Seto Kaiba owned this game. He practically owned the industry as well, Kaiba Corp. had a monopoly over the dueling franchise. And yet... Somehow he doubted he was missing the mysterious 'Heart of the Cards', but whenever he assembled a deck he wanted to put one more card in. Except he didn't know what the card was.  
When he put together a report, he felt he needed one more page, but couldn't figure out what to write. In the morning, after a dream he couldn't remember what it was, but felt that it was important.

It was a life of gesture, and no matter how crude nothing shattered. Except himself.

"...burst stream," Three Blue Eyes and he couldn't put them anywhere. A God Card and he couldn't bring himself to play it. When did he become such a coward? With a snarl he knocked all the decks to the ground, watching with mild satisfaction as the cards spilled across the table and the floor.

They were just cards.

Seto Kaiba picked up one at random, and ripped it in half. They were just cards. He'd been awake for too long. He'd lost count after day four, because it was hard to keep track of time when you never slept. He ripped another card in half and tossed the pieces in the air, watching them slowly drift back down.

They were just cards. And he was just a man with no past.

* * *

_Hn. The first full chapter. Isis is one of my favorite characters in YGO. I think she is definitely my favorite female character._

_If I remember correcly, 'burst stream' is the attack the BEWD has in the Japanese version. I haven't actually watched my DVDs in a long time. So I might be wrong._

How'd you like it?  
CC


	3. Chapter Two: This Thought

Casket

**Chapter Two**

_The best secrets are kept/ Between my locked lips_

Three hundred and forty seven. He'd destroyed three hundred and forty seven dollars worth of Duel Monsters cards. He must have fallen alseep between tearing the first card and waking up with the three hundred and forty seventh in his hands. Except, he knew he that he'd torn that many up, the shreds of paper and foil and whatever else was used to make them lay on the floor. He was half a mind to pick them up and fit them all back together. Just to see if he could.

_Mou, Secchan!_

Both blue eyes narrowed, though the right eye slipped shut after a while. Followed shortly by the left. Funny, how a little thing like cards could make one remember things they'd rather forget. When he was younger he used to take apart clocks. Throw them on the sidewalk and then pick out all the pieces. Every time he did that his mother would say 'Mou, Secchan!' as if that would help put the clocks back together. He finally managed to put one back together... and it ran backwards until they threw it away. Seto had forgotten about the clocks until just now, something which made him frown. How could he have forgotten it?

The past is irrelevant. Wasn't it? He'd been working off of that truth for some time. The past was just a step towards the future. Once your foot was off of it, there was no need to turn back unless you had made a mistake. And Seto Kaiba didn't make mistakes. HE didn't make mistakes, he hadn't. Not for years. Every move had been planned out, rook to E4, pawn to G16, Queen's Gambit Declined. Everything he'd thought of. Except... only pawns couldn't move backwards, and he wanted to be Queened, not limited by only forward movement.

Decartes had gone through this. Seto thought idly. The deconstruction of everything he thought he knew._ I think therefore I am._ Is what he had come up with. However, when it was one's thoughts that were against him... what is one to come up with as an aboslute truth?

_There is no truth._

Except, then it would be a lie.

_There is no self._

Seto was far more at ease with that statement. The self was a conglomerate of memories, social perceptions, beliefs, ideals and perhaps even physical attributes. His self, Seto Kaiba was a set of carefully constructed ideas, memories, social perceptions and beliefs. So all he had to do was take it apart and put it back together again.

Now...where were all the pieces?

* * *

Author's Notes: I know you are probably disappointed with me. This chapter is, I admit, filler and a tad rushed. But the RuroKen fandom distracted me -;;; so I hope to be back in action :D Please review, it brightens my day. 'Sides, if I have 35 hits there should be more than 3 reviews? -;;;

CC


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